The Reason I Chose Not to Behave Badly During a Divorce

I pleaded with my husband to stop his severe financial abuse. I begged him to stop hurting our children to hurt me. I did everything I could to diminish his desire to punish me.

I repeatedly, asked him the same question.

“When,” I would say. “Are you going to decide you love our children more than you hate me?”

My husband didn’t care.

He viewed divorce as a war. He viewed me leaving him as a betrayal. I viewed divorce as the unfortunate reality of exhausting all of our options. I wasn’t angry, he was.

I thought it was a sad ending for two college sweethearts.

I could never have imagined what my husband would inflict during our divorce.

People can behave badly.

I chose not to.

7 reasons I didn’t behave badly during a divorce.

My Foundation

I can still hear my mother’s voice.

Despite the fact, she no longer walks beside me.

She is my conscience. It’s why I do the right thing, even when no one is watching. Irish Catholic momma’s have a way of making you believe they always are.

“Colleen,” my mom would say. “Did you do the right thing?”

She would pose this question if the circumstances demanded it. If she wanted to reinforce that there are times when only we can choose right over wrong.

I was taught to do the right thing.

I didn’t behave badly during my divorce because of my foundation.

My Self-Respect

I followed my mother’s lead in life.

She was a woman with tremendous self-respect.

She didn’t look to others for validation. She didn’t make choices based on what others thought. She didn’t compromise herself, or her values. She protected her self-worth and self-respect.

She was comfortable with the decisions she made.

She was proud of her moral standards.

I didn’t behave badly during my divorce because of my self-respect.

My Self-Esteem

I used to tell my children something while they were growing up.

“If I do my job right,” I would say. “You will be confident enough to never need to make another person feel bad, to make yourself feel good.”

I would often follow with, “It takes great confidence to be wrong.”

Relationships are important to me.

I’ve always been motivated by love. It’s why I taught my kids these lessons. Confidence gives us a greater ability to love well. It alleviates ego, control, pettiness, and punishment.

Confident people can feel your pain, celebrate your joy, and see you for who you truly are. They are secure enough, to be somewhat free of emotional nonsense.

Authentic confidence gives us the ability to do the right thing.

I didn’t behave badly during my divorce because I was confident.

My Maturity

I may have grown up faster than some.

I am the child of a single parent.

But every human being must grow up. We must reach a level of maturity. Especially, once we decide to have children. We then lose the luxury of immaturity.

This means we have to do the right thing.

We have to be self-responsible, we have to be predictable and dependable, we have to have self-control, and solid decision making. We have to be accountable for our behavior and our choices.

Unfortunately, not all adults are.

I always say, “I’m tired of watching children masquerading as adults.”

I didn’t behave badly during my divorce because I’m mature.

My Spirituality

My faith, like my mother, was my conscience.

There were plenty of times that I lost it during my husband’s severe financial abuse. I was in the fight of my life to protect my children from their own father.

It wasn’t easy.

I was stressed, depressed, distracted, and sleep deprived.

I did and said things that I regret. I reacted to his abuse. I’m human. But at the end of the day, I did the right thing because it was the right thing to do. My mother taught me this and my faith reinforced it.

I didn’t retaliate.

I didn’t do tit for tat. I didn’t match my husband’s desire for a fight. I didn’t escalate the war he felt I had started. I didn’t implement any of my own tactics. I simply got through it as best I could.

I didn’t behave badly during my divorce because of my spirituality.

My Values

I learned something at the beginning of marriage counseling.

I arrived at our appointment alone one day. My husband had refused to return. I had been reflective on the car ride there. I had come to an unwanted reality.

“I had an epiphany,” I said. “If I’m right, my marriage is over.”

“What’s that?” asked my marriage counselor.

“My husband and I don’t have the same values,” I said. “I thought we did but we don’t. My values are God and family. His values are himself and money.”

This epiphany meant my marriage was over.

Yet I remained for years after that appointment. Despite, being at odds with myself. I couldn’t be with a man who didn’t share the same values. They were too important to me.

The values that are instilled in us decide our path in life.

They are what guide our decisions. They reign us back in, when we get near the edge. They force us back to our foundation. They remind us what is most important.

I didn’t behave badly during my divorce because I was raised with strong values.

My Children

My children are the three greatest loves of my life.

I didn’t have the luxury of being childish during my divorce.

I instinctually sought to protect my kids. I had the primal obligation to shield them from as much pain as possible. It wasn’t easy. I was running interference to a man’s severe abuse.

I was scared, exhausted, and in way over my head.

The man I married was formidable.

A bully intent on taking me down, not divorcing me. As I have said, I am not proud of my reactions to his abuse. It made all of us act out in different ways.

I was trying to protect my children.

They were confused and devastated by their father’s behavior.

At the same time, they were dealing with a different type of loss. Their mother was no longer the same. It strained our relationships while the four of us did the best we could to survive what their dad was inflicting.

I wasn’t going to make anything worse for them.

I didn’t behave badly during my divorce because my children came first.

…

People can behave badly during a divorce.

Worse, they can get away with it. It doesn’t seem possible, it doesn’t seem believable, it doesn’t seem fair, but they do. The family law process is riddled with lies, manipulation, immaturity, and abuse.

I write extensively about divorce abuse.

I attempt to make a difference.

The legal system is forced to run interference with the individuals they are dealing with. The spouses who choose to behave badly, in order to achieve their desired custodial or monetary outcome.

The spouses who want to be in control.

The spouses who want to win.

The people who don’t care about doing what’s right.

Because they are missing at least 7 things necessary to make them want to.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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From The Good Men Project on Medium

What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean?

My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me

The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex

The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence

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Photo credit: Romain Dancre on Unsplash